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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24741349">it feels like thousand eyes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/astahfrith/pseuds/astahfrith'>astahfrith</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>you've got a difference to make [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Destiny (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dark Ages, Gen, I Don't Know How To Tell You You Should Care About Other People, behold an OC fic, warlord era</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:02:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,599</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24741349</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/astahfrith/pseuds/astahfrith</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the price of giving a damn, of caring about a future beyond the here and now. Idran would never think it’s not worth it, but sometimes, in moments like these, it’s difficult to believe that that future will ever become a reality.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>A Warlord - by name if not by heart - weighs the costs of the world they want to build.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ghost &amp; Guardian (Destiny)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>you've got a difference to make [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816111</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>it feels like thousand eyes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/gifts">Gileonnen</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <em>I lie awake</em>
  <br/>
  <em>and watch it all;</em>
  <br/>
  <em>it feels like thousand eyes</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>--"Thousand Eyes," Of Monsters and Men</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the map before them blurs enough that Idran can’t make the name for their own territory resolve itself even after several hard blinks, they at last concede that they should probably go to sleep. They’ve been awake since dawn yesterday, and with a glance out the window, they confirm that it’s now closer to another dawn than not. There’s a hint of gray on the horizon, the first creeping fingers of twilight.</p>
<p>Idran sighs and leans back in their chair. The sigh turns to a groan and then to a hiss as they stretch their arms above their head, bones crackling and muscles protesting loudly at being hunched in the same position for so long. Idran clenches their teeth and makes themselves hold the stretch for several moments longer. Eventually the pain starts to die to a more tolerable burn, and they sag forward, dropping their face into their hands. They rub at their eyes and sigh again, long and heavy. After a long moment of staring into the darkness behind their eyelids, they lift their head and prop their chin up on their knitted hands to stare at the map below their elbows again, unseeingly.</p>
<p>Idran’s mouth twists. They’ve spent this whole night, and more besides, poring over this map, filling dozens of crumpled pages - now scattered on their desk and the floor around them - with ultimately useless ideas. They’ve worked the problem from as many angles as they and their second, Yasmin, could think of.. They simply don’t have the time or people or resources right now to make an attempt at annexing the territory of their neighboring Warlord to the south without an unacceptable level of risk to their people <em>and</em> his. </p>
<p>The failure burns deep. The reports they’ve been hearing from that territory are...bad, to say the least. If they could march into Declan’s stronghold, slice his head from his shoulders and take his Ghost to pieces and know that it would fix the problem, they would. But the bastard has too many allies. They can’t fight a war on three fronts and protect the front at their back. </p>
<p>With great reluctance, Idran extinguishes the Solar orb they’ve been using for light, blinking at the sudden darkness. They have to admit the problem isn’t going to become any more tractable even if they do stay up til dawn, and Yasmin will give them endless grief if they show up with any deeper shadows under their eyes. They shove back from their desk, standing, and then grimace as feeling starts to flood back into their legs. They brace themselves against the chair until the pins and needles begin to fade away.</p>
<p>As they wait, they glance at their bed and the grimace deepens. They <em>should</em> sleep. They have a meeting tomorrow - today - with the leaders of the disparate towns and villages under their protection. They’ll need all the sleep they can get to deal with explaining to the southern leaders why there is nothing they can do about Declan at this moment other than to assign more Risen to guard their homes.  </p>
<p>(As though they have enough of those to spare. But that’s a thought for later.)</p>
<p>The leaders would prefer Declan dead, perhaps even more than Idran does. Idran has built quite a reputation for doing just that to Warlords that take both halves of their title too seriously. But they <em>don’t </em>have a reputation for starting fights they know they can’t win. They have to hope that the leaders will understand that.</p>
<p>Still, though, they’re filled with too much restless energy to sleep. Zara, the mother of four down the hill who worries after Idran’s health more than should be healthy for <em>her</em>, would probably tell them to just lie down and close their eyes, that some kind of rest is better than none at all. But they know they’ll just lie there turning the Declan problem over and over and over again. They need a distraction. Unfortunately none come to mind at this hour that wouldn’t make Yasmin give them that damned <em>look</em>. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.</p>
<p>Idran sighs again and sits on the edge of the bed, scrubbing their hands down their face. As they do, they feel a small tug at their Light and then the telltale sound of Isla, their Ghost, transmatting in. They keep the heels of their palms pressed to their eyes a moment longer before they look up at her. But when they do -</p>
<p>“Oh, don’t you go giving me that look <em>too, </em>I’m going to get it enough from Yasmin tomorrow,” they complain.</p>
<p>Isla has the decency to look at least a little abashed, but the look doesn’t entirely abate.</p>
<p>“You can’t keep this up, Idran,” she says, sternly enough that it’s Idran’s turn to feel abashed. Isla is usually so soft spoken - if she’s being so forthright, then they probably really <em>have</em> been pushing themselves too hard.</p>
<p>“I <em>know,”</em> they say, chagrined. “I just -“ they don’t finish the sentence, instead burying their hands in their hair and making a wordless sound of fury and frustration. “Esme and Isobel lost their last daughter in Declan’s last raid,” they say eventually, low and rough. Esme and Isobel are the married co-leaders of a small village close to the border of their territory with Declan. Too close. Cerys wasn’t the first child they had lost, and if Idran doesn’t <em>do something</em> she will most likely not be the last. The guilt sits heavy and sour in their gut. “And I have to look them in the eyes tomorrow and tell them there’s nothing I can do. Not enough, at least.”</p>
<p>“You’re doing as much as you can. They know that you’ve been trying - ” Isla tries to comfort, but they don’t <em>want</em> to be comforted.</p>
<p>“Trying isn’t good enough when peoples’ children keep <em>dying,” </em>they snap, and then immediately feel - more - terrible for it. Isla isn’t the one to direct their anger at. They make another frustrated noise and fall backwards onto the bed, glaring miserably at the ceiling.</p>
<p>Isla doesn’t say anything in response, only floats up to bump herself against Idran’s fingers until they take their hands out of their hair to cup them over their stomach and let her settle there. She looks up at them with her big gold eye, unblinking.</p>
<p>“I know how much this hurts you, Idran,” she says, soft but firm. “I know you’d do whatever is necessary to protect those people if you could. Esme and Isobel know this too, even if it’s buried deep in grief right now. It will hurt, but they will understand, even if it takes time.” She pauses. “More than that, I know you’d save the whole world if you could. It’s one of the things I love and admire about you. I chose well when I chose you. But you’re one person. One person with so many other people relying on you.”</p>
<p>“...I <em>know,”</em> they say after a long moment, chest tight. They know it better than anyone. They know it every time they lose a person, a family, a village, to the Warlords who look at what Idran has built and covet it, without a care for what it takes to <em>keep</em> it. It doesn’t happen very often. (That it happens at all is unforgivable.)</p>
<p>Isla lets out a soft <em>chrrr</em> and then they feel her Light wash over them, unshaped but still warm. Despite themselves, some of the tension leeches from Idran’s body, shoulders slumping back against the bed. They let themselves close their eyes for a moment, let Isla’s Light soothe away the ache in their head and their jaw and their shoulders.</p>
<p>To tell the truth, they don’t remember the last time they slept a whole night through, deep and undisturbed either by their own thoughts or the needs of others. They’re exhausted, in more ways than just the physical. They feel it down to their bones, and deeper. This is the price of giving a damn, of caring about a future beyond the here and now. Idran would never think it’s not worth it, but sometimes, in moments like these, it’s difficult to believe that that future will ever become a reality.</p>
<p>(They don’t know if even Isla knows the depth of the sheer <em>hopelessness</em> they sometimes feel, in their worst moments. Usually after they’ve lost someone, again. She probably does, or suspects: it would be impossible for her not to, given the bond between them. But she has never brought it up, for which they are unspeakably grateful. They don’t know what they’d do without her. They wouldn’t have made it this far without her in the first place.)</p>
<p>Eventually they feel Isla tug herself free of the cradle of their hands, and then the brush of warm metal as she settles at the crook of their shoulder. They bring a hand up to rest on her shell. She <em>chrrrs </em>again, the vibration singing against their throat.</p>
<p>“Try to sleep,” she says after a moment, gentler than they deserve. “Just try, okay?”</p>
<p>“...alright,” Idran says finally, and reluctantly drag themselves up the bed until they can collapse on their pillow. They turn their head towards the window, where the horizon is just beginning to shade from gray to red and orange and gold.</p>
<p>Tomorrow will come, they think, and they will get up and face it. They will keep moving forward, no matter how impossible it feels. They have to. </p>
<p>For now, though, they hold Isla a little closer, and close their eyes.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Oh my God I finally wrote an OC fic I didn't immediately balk at posting. You might think this isn't a big deal unless you look at my Destiny fics folder on drive, which has an unmentionable number of unfinished and unposted OC works in it. :))))) Anyway, meet Idran, a new OC I'm trying to get in the head of. Awoken, Dark ages Warlord, literally the "I DON'T KNOW HOW TO TELL YOU YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE" meme personified. Almost always willing to throw down for someone else's sake. Also their Ghost Isla, whom I love and adore and would die for. </p>
<p>This ficlet dedicated to Gil because Idran is part of an ongoing "but what if enemies to lovers" Thing we're exploring with a new pair of OCs (Gil's is not mentioned here because I had enough anxiety about writing my OWN character let alone someone else's, even an oblique mention :P Plus y'know, Still Under Development. Someday, perhaps!)</p>
<p>Thank you for reading, please tell me what you think!!!!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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